Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Homemade Doughnuts

MMMM! Hot, yummy doughnuts. The best thing about them is that they were made with love by my Granny! Below is a picture of her. Please note that that great big pile of doughnuts was only about half of what was made. The other half was already residing in out bellies and I had to fight people off just to get the pile for a picture.

Granny is well known all over for her made-from-scratch rolls. Her entire family loves her rolls and right down to the great grand children, we all cannot get enough. Then sometime last year, sitting around the kitchen table telling stories as is often the case, it came up that she had also made doughnuts in the past. Being the food lovers that my siblings and cousins immediately grabbed a hold of this concept. Finally, last week my sister had a break through and convinced Granny to make her doughnuts Easter Saturday! Needless to say I was snapping pictures through the entire process.

She showed up the the dough already made and an ancient metal device to shape the doughnuts. We cleared the kitchen and set up and started making the doughnut shapes as they had to have time to rise.

My Mom and Niece also got involved making the shapes:

After the doughnuts had risen enough they were promptly dropped in the hot oil and flipped after a time.

They were then removed from the oil and the glazed by my Wife.

After that it is all about repeating that process over and over. We figured out that we made about 8 dozen by the time it was all over.

As an alternative to the glazing we also coated them in cinnamon sugar.

There is nothing like eating Granny's rolls right out of the oven. Though, I have to say, Granny's doughnuts hot out of the frying pan is right up there.

I definitely need to get some pictures of her making rolls next. That is a process to behold!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Baby its cold outside!

Thanks to the fact that, even though Elon is closed due to the snow, my wonderful wife still has to work, I found myself on Elon's beautiful campus with my camera and plenty of time! Thus a new blog post!

The above shot is what I imagine the kids from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe saw as they emerged from it the first time.

The snow look so nice laying against the library:

I found this poor leaf being buried alive by the sleet:

I just really liked the look of the bark on this tree stickin up out of the snow.

This droplet of water was waiting in anticipation to drop to the earth:

The word that came to mind for this shot was "stark":

Lastly and shot of a different lamp post. They are scattered all over campus and make a great element to shoot:

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Auschwitz, Poland

Our first stop in Poland was Auschwitz. This is a place you have to experience. It is really hard to put it into words. Fortunately, I have images to help.

Upon entering Auschwitz you quickly realize that there were 2 main sections of this camp. The first part was the "nice" section as you see below.

These buildings, that once house prisoners, now house museums devoted to the camp. The things is these museums are incredible and horrific. They start you off "easy" showing you piles of luggage, piles of eye glasses, piles of crutches and fake legs and then move on to an entire basketball court sized room with a mountain of shoes on each side of it...

And this wasn't the worst display they had. The ultimate for me was the room full of human hair. They didn't allow pictures in that room and I don't think I could have even taken a picture as I was pretty shaken by the sight.

Also in that section of the camp was the only gas chamber that was still standing and yes, the tour took you through it. Almost as disturbing as the hair was the walls of this chamber...

After the tour of this side of camp ended, they take you to the "bad" side of camp. Most of it is not standing though it is easy to imagine that it hasn't changed since the ally's razed it.

There was a memorial to the Jews on the tracks in the middle of this section and it was an old train car that carried prisoners into the camp and it was adorned with flowers and stacks of rocks that people had left in rememberance.

There is one side of the camp that is still mostly intact. Inside they still had the sleeping arrangements set up and the like.

I will leave you with the most disturbing thing. At one side of the camp is where the 2 huge gas chambers and incinerators were. As you walk around you are stuck by a smell. After a while it hits you what it is. People, I kid you not... You can still smell the ashes...

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Nuremberg, Germany

On our way to Prague we stopped over in Nuremberg for some lunch and a quick tour around. Old town Nuremberg is a walled city capped off with a castle which we didn't have time to see as this was a lunch stop.
As soon as we got out of the parking garage we were greeted by St. Sebald rising above the trees.

We then set off to find some food thus heading for the market.

Our first stop was the Hauptmarkt. A square that was filled with vendors selling everything from produce, to flowers, to hard salami (which is what we ended up having for lunch).

Upon walking into the square you are greeted by the monument below and the
Männleinlaufen church.

After we ate we then headed out exploring for a bit. The river Pegnitz runs right through the middle of the city. As you can see from the very first picture, the city is often flows right over it and being summer the flowers were in full bloom.

I found it interesting that on a building here and there throughout Germany you would find sun dials.

Our final stop was St. Lawrence's Church.

As you can see, it was a work of art!
The truly amazing thing about Nuremberg is the fact that it was almost completely flattened during World War II. The entire city has been rebuilt with great attention to preserving its history and making it whole once again. This is definitely a city in which I wish we had had more time to explore!